


Still All Brawn, No Mettle

by SensationalSunburst



Series: PawPaw!Cor [8]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Afterlife fic, But it's only because he cares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Gen, Gladio hates trains, Guilty Gladdy, Ignis is a snitch, PawPaw!Cor, Prompto does like warping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-21
Updated: 2017-05-21
Packaged: 2018-11-03 02:28:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10957773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SensationalSunburst/pseuds/SensationalSunburst
Summary: “I thought I’d killed him.”Prompto only replied by scooting over to press his leg flush to Gladio’s.“After Altissa, on the train. I never heard him sound like that before, so... so shattered. But I was just so blinded by my own fear, all I could do was lash out. Everything was out of control.” Gladio said. Beside him, Prompto began to fold his beer’s label into a square, the empty bottle stored safely behind him.ORPrompto provides a shoulder to lean on as Gladio works through that  that he and Noctis never got to resolve their fight on the train.





	Still All Brawn, No Mettle

**Author's Note:**

> While this is technically part of the whole PawPaw!Cor series, it can totally be read as a standalone. 
> 
> But I was a little miffed that Gladio never apologized to Noctis after his TOTALLY uncalled for asshatness on the train.

“Have you talked to him?”

Gladio turned his eyes away from the still, murky water of the Vesperpool towards the sound of Prompto’s voice. The blonde, shifting gracefully between his thirty and twenty year old bodies sat beside him on the dock with the kind of calm that, at one time or another, seemed to settled into everyone’s bones in the Beyond. Prompto, upon first feeling it, described it as a weighted blanket, grounding and warm.

(“It feels like how Luna talks,” Prompto had said, tilting his head to side to side with the effort of coming up with an adequate description. “That… peaceful, like, lightness.”)

Gladio hadn’t heard him walk up the worn wooden pier, meaning that Prompto must have sought him out the new way, the blink-and-you’re-there-if-you-think-hard-enough way. And  _that_ more than anything indicated that Prompto was on some kind of mission, as he hated not knowing where he was for any length of time. He looked visibly ill every time he teleported himself from one place to the next; old, ugly memories making his skin crawl when he couldn’t tell up from down. Forward from back.

Gladio couldn’t blame him.

Nor could he play stupid in the face of Prompto’s sincere, gentle smile. Quieter and more honest than his usual all teeth grin. He’d watched how Gladio had shrunk away from the group earlier as they discussed taking a train trip into the northern territories, splurging (despite the fact that money wasn’t used here, not really) on luxury cabins. Prompto, whose bright eyes, like a spotlight, caught everything, must have watched the flash of revulsion cross Gladio’s face at the thought of once again rattling along in a train car.

Prompto lifted his legs to wiggle a can opener from his back pocket and popped open the tall necked beer he’d brought with him. Already, beads of condensation were dripping from the amber glass and he passed it to a silent Gladio wearing that same, wistful grin.

Somewhere, a frog splashed into the water, and Gladio could just see the ripple of its impact bounce and reflect its way past the dead tree stumps and into the little sheltered pond before him. The pond he’d waded in to drag a massive, legendary fish from to what had been the increasingly rare sound of Noctis’s laughter. He didn’t know why he’d chosen this place to escape to, why that memory was what he’d latched on to when he'd ducked out of the room and made his escape.

“Ignis saw it too.” Prompto continued, tucking the discarded caps into the pocket of his vest. Absently, he began to pick at the paper label, a habit Gladio recognized from those rare instances when Ignis had indulged the Shield with the purchase of a six pack, always his favorite citrus pale ales, at a remote gas station in life.

“I won’t say anything-”

“I know.” Gladio said, putting a the bottle to his lips. It was pale ale, a hint of bright lemony citrus over the hops, and Gladio knew immediately that it was Ignis that had supplied Prompto with the offering.

“Ignis will. He won’t say why, but you know he’ll send Noct out to find you.”

“I know.”

They lapsed into silence, letting the cicadas sing amongst the trees, and confident that the insects would leave them be. Somewhere out there, Gladio thought, on the other side of the lake, was a dungeon that he hadn’t been there to explore. Where was he in the Trials by that point? They’d told him all about their adventure when he’d returned, about the Chancellor and Aranea and the beast under the ceiling of water, but all Gladio had heard was their little omissions. Aranea, he’d gathered, was a good fighter, but she didn’t slot into the hole he’d left. He’d counted their curatives that night, noting with a growing pit in his stomach just how many were missing.

The beers Ignis had brought him later were bitter and warm. He drank them all anyway.

“I thought I’d killed him.”

Prompto only replied by scooting over to press his leg flush to Gladio’s.

“After Altissa, on the train. I never heard him sound like that before, so shattered. But I was just so blinded by my own fear, all I could do was lash out. Everything was out of control.” Gladio said. Beside him, Prompto began to fold his beer’s label into a square, the empty bottle stored safely behind him.  

“Before Altissia, there was some… some semblance of a plan. When things went a little off course, it was alright because there was an end goal. Then, suddenly, Iggy was blind, Luna was dead, the city destroyed and I’d had to haul him out of the water and I thought for a second that he was dead.” That memory, no matter how peaceful the Beyond could get, would never leave him. Spotting a black blob amongst the floating debris, registering it as Noctis, limp, lifeless Noctis. Gladio’s heart had fled his chest, skipping past the stages of plummeting to his shoes and instead had simply carved its way through his ribcage and out into the ether. He’d been lightheaded when he’d yanked the prince out of the water, dizzy when he’d pressed his ear to that scrawny, pale chest.

“Then, he was sitting there on the train, like a broken doll, and I just…” Gladio took another pull from his beer, still as cold as if he’d just pulled it from the fridge and rolled it between his palms.

“I was so afraid that’d I finally pushed too far. I’d never been so mad. Then we were down _there_ , and it felt like everything was slipping out of my hands. I couldn’t keep track of anyone, I’d lost our rhythm. Noct kept running ahead, I came up an embankment at one point and I saw one of the gurangatchs grab his bad leg, knock him down and he didn’t even flinch.” Gladio unconsciously accepted the second beer that Prompto pushed into his hands and heard the sound of his nails clicking against the glass as he began work to remove the discarded bottle’s label.  

“You know how it was, you tap that leg wrong and he’d go down. But this thing has its teeth in him, it’s trying to pull him under and he just looked so _empty_. Defeated like-”

“He looked like he’d given up.” Prompto finished. His shoulder rubbed against Gladio’s as he shrugged.  “When he’d wake up… after Altissa, he always had this look of disappointment on his face. Resignation, almost. I didn’t get why, not really, not until after we all kinda drifted apart after we lost him to the Crystal.”

“Prompto…” Gladio said.

“Eh, don’t worry about it Big Guy. Cindy… Cindy and Cid and Cor really helped me through it. Cor especially….” Prompto soothed. He tucked the little square of label into its bottle and twisted to set it next to its twin.  “You need to talk to him though, seriously.”  

“I’m not sure how to even apologize.” Gladio laughed dryly. “I snuffed out that little spark in his eyes on that train; crushed it. And I never got to apologize for it, never apologized for taking my own fear out on him. Everything happened too fast after that, and then you were gone and he had purpose again. He had to find you. Then _he_ was gone and then… well?” Gladio gestured all around him, towards the still water, free of demons and enemies. Towards the sun, hidden behind a canopy of hanging moss and branches. To the beer in his hand, staying perfectly cold, despite the muggy heat. To the Beyond.

“All brawn,” Gladio sighed, “No mettle.”

“I’d have to disagree.” Noctis said.

Prompto cut his eyes towards Gladio in time to watch as the inked feathers on his shoulders drooped. Behind him, Noctis was regarding his older brother with a look of gentle bemusement, but Gladio resolutely did not turn to look. Prompto stood, making room for Noctis to take his place and patted Gladio’s shoulder.

“Told ya, Ignis is a snitch.”

“Actually, it was Gladio who summoned me.” Noctis’s lip pulled up to the side, grimacing at his own choice of words. “You thought about it too much. I could feel you.”

It was Noctis the King was who settle beside him, hair pulled neatly away from his face, dressed casually in a black silk shirt and jeans. He never wore the raiment, claiming the whole thing gave him the creeps, but Gladio knew he wasn’t alone in feeling thankful for that. After Ignis had told them what had happened to Noct, how he’d died, Gladio had nightmares about it for a week. All his mind wanted to conjure were blood soaked images of Noctis, just a kid, flayed out on the upholstery of the throne like some sort of sick science experiment. Or even worse, was when he was pinned, his father’s sword through his heart, and Gladio wasn’t strong enough to remove the blade.

“I blamed you for Iggy’s blindness.” Gladio said into his beer, he could hear Prompto’s footsteps retreating before they abruptly disappeared mid-step; he could feel the pulse of magic, not unlike what it felt like to stand near Noctis when he warped, ripple through the air.

“Yeah.” Noctis said.

“I called you a coward for hesitating to put on the very thing you watched suck your dad’s life away. I gave you hell for _mourning_.” It was a conversation he’d had in his head a thousand times over the ten years they’d waited in the dark. He’d hashed out every possibility of Noct’s reactions; he rehearsed what he’d say if Noctis had grown angry, if he cried. He knew exactly how Noctis would strike, if he decided to hit him. He hadn’t imagined however, that Noctis would place his hand over Gladio’s where he was gripping his beer like a lifeline.

“ _You_ didn’t mourn at all.” Noctis replied.

“Doesn’t excuse anything.” Gladio returned, “My dad died doing his duty; an honorable death. Expected. You lost _everything_ and I attacked you for it. I was supposed to the one person who was always on your side, the one to restart you when your mind dragged you under, I was your Shield but I treated you like an enemy, and I never apologized for it.”

“I forgive you.” Noctis said, and when Gladio didn’t turn his eyes away from the water’s surface, he reached out, looped his finger through the chain around Gladio’s neck and tugged at it. For a moment, Gladio didn’t respond, but Noctis made an impatient noise in the back of his throat and tugged harder, forcing Gladio to turn his head, shoulders subtly lifted towards his ears.

“I forgive you.” Noctis repeated, he released the chain, letting it thump harmlessly against the thin fabric of Gladio’s t-shirt. “I forgave you years ago. In that swamp, in the Keep. I had… lots of time to think in the Crystal. Do you know what I remembered the most?”

Gladio fought the urge to roll his eyes and flicked two fingers out from where he was rubbing the glue reside from the glass.  

“I remembered all the times you stood beside me, not necessarily in front of me. What I needed- what I’ll always need, is for you to stand by me. When we were just kids and I couldn’t bring myself to get out of bed and you just watched movies with me? When you used to kick my ass, you were able to pull me out of my head and into my body- helped chase away that feeling of helplessness that swallowed me whenever I saw how weak Dad was getting. When you stuck with me, even as everything came apart. And the Astrals know it all just… fell to pieces.” Noctis reached out now, and settled his hand on Gladio’s shoulder, a small, wry smile on his lips.  “I forgive you, Gladio, you just have to forgive yourself.”

“Gods, your mother is rubbing off you on.” Gladio turned his eyes to the sky, breathing deeply through his nose, reveling in the smell of the flowering trees, the damp, the earthy smell of the swamp, and slung his arm around Noctis’s shoulders. Immediately, Noctis shifted, shoulders narrowing, beard melting, hair lifting from that slicked style and into the disheveled dark cloud of his twenties .

“Yeah.” Noctis said, and there was color dusting his cheeks, a small, pleased twist to his lips and Gladio ruffled the kid’s hair.

“Yeah.” He echoed.

“If you still feel bad,” Noctis said, smirking lightly, “You can start making it up to me by giving me one of your beers.”

Gladio laughed and rolled his eyes.

“Brat.”

“Jerk.”

"Yeah, yeah.” Gladio said, “Yeah, yeah.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thank you so much for reading. Please drop a comment below and feel free to check me out on tumblr!  
> <3


End file.
